Crashed and Gone
by bionic4ever
Summary: Sil2b: An alternative sequel to 'Silence', because not every story has a happy ending...
1. Chapter 1

**Crashed and Gone**

To neesie-pie for her helpful suggestions, weaving dreams for her support and jtbwriter, the fastest mouse in the West.

Chapter One

Oscar Goldman had always prided himself on remaining calm in any given situation, and he intended to do that here, as soon as he figured out what the situation was. The limo...something had happened to the limo. He'd been riding in the back, holding Jaime in his arms, kissing her the way he'd always wanted to - and she was kissing him back, just as eagerly - when he'd heard _bang_ and then **_BANG!_** The second sound lifted the car into the air, shook it violently and slammed it to the ground. They'd careened wildly to the right, then stopped with a stomach-turning c-r-u-n-c-h. Oscar was out of the car and lying on the ground when he'd finally opened his eyes, and now he stood on shaky legs, trying to figure out his next move.

The driver. Oscar decided he should make sure the driver had called for help. He couldn't understand why his brain and his body seemed to be moving in slow motion. He stood where the front of the limo should've been, but found no driver...and no car. Charred and blood-splashed metal was piled in a heap that no longer resembled half of a limo. His eyes came to rest on what was left of the driver, about 30 feet away in the bushes, and he had to turn away and battle hard to regain control of his stomach. Thank God the passenger portion of the car had been reinforced with more strength than an Army tank. Hopefully Jaime hadn't seen what he was looking at. _Jaime!_ Where was Jaime, and was she hurt? Was she alive?

He returned to the door he must've left ajar, and when he pulled it open and looked into the back seat, for the first time in many years, Oscar felt true fear. There were several blood spatters on Jaime's side of the back seat, and the other door was badly damaged, but not from the explosion. It appeared to have been kicked out, bionically. Jaime, herself, was gone.

His head was spinning crazily and Oscar sensed he was about to pass out. With all the strength he had left, he snatched the emergency radio from its pocket in the backseat. It had been specially designed to automatically connect with the nearest secure government emergency frequency.

"Andrews." It was the nearby Air Force base.

"This is Oscar Goldman. I need an ambulance and multiple search teams..." he was beginning to fade, and tried to get in as much information as he could. "My limo's crashed...Valley...View...Road." Oscar sank slowly to the ground beside the car as the world went dark.

------

The radio operator dispatched an ambulance immediately, to an unknown location on Valley View Road. Then he turned and called out to the visiting officer in the next room. "Hey, Colonel!"

Steve Austin, in his dress uniform and fresh from the retirement ceremony for one of his favorite generals, poked his head in the door. "You found me; what's up?"

"You used to work for Oscar Goldman, didn't you?"

"Well, I guess that's not the well-kept secret I thought it was. Still do, once in awhile. Why?"

"His car's been in an accident; sounds like it might be a bad one. He asked for multiple search teams."

"Where is he?" Steve, asked, instantly tensed and fully alert.

"Valley View Road - that's all he said, then I think he passed out. The ambulance and the Medivac are out looking for the limo now."

"So am I," Steve called, on his way out the door.

------

Steve reached the wreck as the medics were loading Oscar onto a stretcher. He was awake but not entirely coherent. "Oscar, what happened?"

The medic looked grimly at Steve. "He's in shock. And his driver...is over there." He pointed to the now-covered remains of the limo driver.

"Jaime..." Oscar mumbled, sitting up to talk to Steve.

"Mister Goldman, you need to lie back and rest now."

He'd said enough; Steve had heard him. "What about Jaime?"

"She...she's gone. There's blood, and the door..." Oscar fell back on the stretcher, getting weaker by the second, the shock taking its toll.

"Oscar - what do you mean 'she's gone'? Was Jaime in the car?"

"Was...kissing her...and..." That was all he could manage before passing out again.

Steve looked into what was left of the limo. He saw the blood, and knew Oscar didn't appear to be bleeding. Fear gripped his heart. He saw the door, kicked open and hanging by one hinge, and his left eye began scanning the surrounding hillside. Had Jaime left the wreck to go and find help? Was she hurt and wandering out there, lost and bleeding? Or - he couldn't bear to think this, but knew he had to - was this something much more ominous than a simple crash?

------


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

Steve felt torn into at least three separate pieces. He had too many things he needed to do, and he needed to do all of them _now_. He was sitting in a hallway, waiting to talk with Rudy and then, hopefully, with Oscar. He needed to inspect the crash site and the remains of the limo as soon as he could get there. Jack Hansen and several of his NSB agents were already doing that, because Jaime's disappearance was a national security matter as well as a potential intelligence breach.

Steve also desperately wanted to be up in the surrounding hills, personally searching for Jaime. If she'd panicked after the crash and run off somewhere, she could be lying up there, hurt - maybe dying - alone and vulnerable. Steve couldn't bear to think about that. Between the NSB, the OSI and the Air Force, there were three dozen men on the ground and a half dozen more in the air, looking for her already. There was also a team from the FBI investigating the entire incident, since it was potentially an attempt to assassinate the Director of the OSI.

"You look like you're a million miles away," Rudy noted, sitting in a chair next to Steve's.

Steve snapped instantly back to the here and now. "How's Oscar? Is he conscious?"

Rudy nodded. "Not entirely out of shock, though, and he's extremely weak. The force of the crash must have been astronomical to send his body into physical shock, but luckily he wasn't injured. Whatever he saw threw him into emotional shock as well; he's still pretty confused, shaky on a lot of the details."

"Didn't Jaime have tests with you this week?"

"She finished a day early. Just left this morning."

"What the hell was she doing in Oscar's limo?"

"I'd imagine he was giving her a ride, either back to his office or to her apartment," Rudy said tentatively.

"Why was he even here?"

"Checking up - seeing how Jaime's tests were turning out."

"He said something about kissing her. Was that part of the confusion you were talking about?"

_Here we go_, Rudy thought to himself. "Actually, Steve, that was probably true."

Steve was stunned, trying to process this and react appropriately when what he wanted to do was put his fist through the wall. He and Jaime hadn't been a couple in over four years, but Steve's love for her had never diminished. The thought of her in another man's arms tore holes through his heart.

"You must've noticed Oscar's feelings for her," Rudy continued, "or heard the rumors."

"Never paid much attention to rumors. Rudy, I really need to talk to Oscar about the crash. I'm heading the OSI's investigation and the search for Jaime. I need to get in there now, if possible."

"Alright, but be very brief. The more rest he gets, the sooner he's back on his feet and back to work."

"Yeah. Ok." Steve found Oscar, not resting in bed, but standing at the window, staring wistfully into the hills.

"Doc told me you were on bedrest," Steve began.

"She's out there somewhere." Oscar sounded dazed.

"We've got teams looking for her and more on the way." Steve helped him back to the bed. "Oscar, I need to know anything you remember about the crash - before, during or after - any sounds, anything you might've seen."

"Two sounds. The first sounded almost like a gunshot."

"A gunshot. Did it come from the car, or -"

"No; from the hills," Oscar told him. "Right after - not even a second later - it sounded like a bomb going off, right in the car. The whole car shook, hard, and the last thing I remember was Jaime...she said something like ' There's a man' or ' There's a van'. Then - nothing. I woke up outside the car, or what was left of it. My driver was dead and Jaime was gone."

_Jaime saw something_. "Oscar," Steve queried, "did you get cut at all; were you bleeding?"

"No." Oscar closed his eyes, physically and emotionally drained. "Jaime..."

Steve got up, patted his boss gently on the shoulder and headed for the door. "We'll find her, Oscar."

------

Steve was in his car, on the way to the crash site, when Jaime began to wake up. Her vision and her mind were foggy and she couldn't clear either one. She was strapped into what looked and felt like a dental chair but this was definitely not a dentist's office. An IV was infusing some sort of cloudy liquid into her left arm and she guessed - correctly - that she was being drugged.

There didn't seem to be anyone else in the room, but her head felt too heavy for her to raise it to look around. She noticed a surveillance-type camera high on the wall opposite her chair. Jaime decided to create as much of a ruckus as she possibly could, to find out who was watching her. Were they the same people she'd been chasing on the hill, the ones who'd grabbed her? Then she turned her head to the side and saw something that caused her to freeze and rethink her strategy. A square, grey metal contraption sat on a table near her chair. Multiple wires stuck out of one side, and although she couldn't move her arms or sit up to check, the wires appeared to be connected to either the chair or her body.

Jaime's feeling was that she'd be safest for now if she feigned unconsciousness. She was in no hurry to find out what the wired box was, or what they intended to do with her, whoever they were. What she didn't know was that they'd seen her open her eyes and they were coming for her.

------


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Steve pulled Jack Hansen aside. "Did you find anything yet?"

"Couple things. The blood in the backseat doesn't belong to Oscar Goldman or Jaime Sommers."

"The driver?" Steve guessed.

"Nope. And that puts us in an entirely different ballpark. Also, one of your men found a bullet casing up in the hills."

"Could've been someone hunting rabbits, or pheasants -"

"It was a hollow point. For human hunting only," Hansen said. "Looks like we have a bonafide assassination attempt, a kidnapping or both. And unfortunately, you know what that means in terms of your friend."

Steve did, and the thought made his heart sink to the ground. NSB policy was to find where the high-level abductee was being held and, rather than launch a rescue attempt, they'd launch _bombs_.

Jack went on, "Helluva lot easier way to go than what they're probably putting her through by now."

------

"We know you're awake; we saw you on the monitor," one of Jaime's captors told her. Jaime didn't move a muscle, or an eyelid. "That's how you wanna play it, huh?" He hit the switch on the metal box, and Jaime's body jumped involuntarily. She didn't moan or cry out, though, even though the pain was unbelievable. She was determined to keep her lips firmly fused shut. She opened her eyes and glared in defiance at the three men who surrounded her chair.

"What's your name, Little Lady?"

She couldn't resist. "Jane Doe."

"How do you know Oscar Goldman? You his girlfriend, or just a one-night-stand?"

Jaime looked the inquisitioner straight in the eyes. "Bite. Me." She winced in pain as she was zapped a second time. She'd been through several rounds of interrogation resistance through the OSI, but she was having trouble dealing with this.

"Ok. We can come back to that. What's the story with your leg?"

"I have two of them. They walk, run, hold me up when I'm standing -" _CRACK!_ The one doing the talking slapped her hard across her face. Instead of the reaction he'd expected, though, Jaime smiled at him. "Gee, that kind of sweet talk'll get you just about anything..."

He hit her again, harder this time. "Don't even try to tell me you don't know what I mean. The wires; why are there wires in your leg? Is that how you kicked the door off its hinges?"

"Must've been the explosion," she said through clenched teeth.

"Your life expectancy's getting shorter by the minute, lady." He turned to his two cohorts. "Let's give that cocktail a little longer to float through her veins. She'll cooperate."

Jaime waited a few moments until their footsteps were outside the door and halfway down the hall. The electric shock and the pain of being struck had given her just enough of a surge of adrenaline to slightly loosen the strap on her right arm. Very quickly, before the men got back to the monitor, she removed the IV needle from her left arm, loosened the other arm's strap, and, unsure if it would actually go in, inserted the needle into her bionic arm. It resisted slightly but then slid under the false skin and held. She slid her arms back into the straps, leaned back, and smiled with satisfaction as she closed her eyes.

------

Steve joined the search crews in the hills until it grew dark, then he decided to return to the hospital to see if Oscar remembered anything else. "He's awake," Rudy said as they walked down the hall together. "It's been a constant battle with him since he got here, though - he keeps insisting he has to help search for Jaime."

Steve frowned. "How serious are they, as a couple?"

"Shouldn't you be talking to Oscar about the crash?"

"Rudy, this isn't curiosity. To tell you the truth, I'd rather not know. But it could be important in figuring out what happened today. Please...?"

"Oscar's been in love with her for years," the doctor explained gently. "From what I hear, it's been fairly common knowledge. But in terms of expressing it, he only told her this morning. So I don't think you could really call them a couple; more like they were exploring the possibility."

"By making out in the back of his limo."

"Steve -"

"Hey, it's a free country, last time I checked. But he could've exercised a little more discretion, then maybe Jaime wouldn't be missing and in danger of having the NSB kill her, if the kidnappers don't do it first.

------

Jaime hoped against hope that her captors wouldn't notice that the IV needle had switched arms. The pole was positioned at the head of the chair rather than the side, so there was a chance they wouldn't know, albeit a very slim one. If they did notice, her plan B would have to be trying to simply battle her way out. But she knew she could never outrun a bullet, especially if all three of them were armed.

Several hours had gone by, enough time for the drugs to work their way at least partially out of her system. The men probably believed her to be totally incapacitated. As her head began to clear, she tried to remember what sort of shape Oscar had been in when she took off for the hills after the assailants. She was fairly sure he'd been lying on the ground outside the limo, but she didn't know if he was hurt, or even if he was alive. That thought threatened to paralyze her, so she pushed it away and replaced it with _I'm going to get out of here - for Oscar._

Finally, they were back. Jaime tried her best to appear heavily drugged even though she was almost fully alert. She felt the men staring intently at her, could feel their eyes on her although her own were half closed.

"Lady, what the hell are you trying to pull?" one of them snarled.

Jaime didn't wait to find out what he meant. She knew she had one shot now, and if she failed, she died. With one powerful motion, she threw her legs up and free of their straps, landing a good, solid kick to the chest of one of her captors, sending him at great force into a second man, leaving both of them sprawled on the floor. She pulled her arms free and took off for the door, letting the IV line and the wires pull away and fall wherever they landed. The one man still standing pulled out his gun, and on her way to the door, Jaime grabbed his firing arm and used it as leverage to flip him onto the ground as well.

The sound of gunfire followed her as she made it into the hallway, and she was confronted with three different directions in which she could go. It was then, with the gunfire coming closer, that Jaime realized she had no idea how to get out of the building.

------


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Steve wasn't sure why - maybe he still had some sort of psychic connection with Jaime - but an awful, sinking feeling was slamming him in the gut. Jaime was in desperate trouble, and she needed help - now. Oscar was in bed, finally obeying the doctor's orders, when Steve went back to see him.

"Hi, Pal," he said, sounding a little stronger than he had earlier. "Any news?"

"A couple of things, and I was hoping they might help jog your memory." Steve told him. "They found evidence a hollow point bullet may have been fired at your car. You said you thought you heard a gunshot before the explosion -"

"The gas tank," Oscar concluded. "The bullet hit the gas tank."

"That's what I think probably happened. Oscar, the blood in the backseat wasn't yours or Jaime's. Since I assume no one else was riding back there with you, do you remember anyone opening the doors after the crash, possibly to grab either you or Jaime? Maybe acting like they were medics?"

Oscar closed his eyes and wracked his memory. "She said, 'Oscar, there's a man - he's got a gun'. Then she pushed me out of the car."

"I'm guessing he was coming down from the hill, on her side of the car?"

"Right. I - I looked up, and he was reaching for Jaime's door. She kicked the door open and knocked him down. There were two more right behind him."

"Two more men? Were they armed?" Steve asked.

"I...think so. That's where I start getting real hazy. Jaime got out of the car, and she almost went down, like she'd hurt her leg. She knocked another one of them down, and pushed the last one so he fell across the backseat, hanging out of the car on my side. I saw his arm raising a gun at me, just as I was blacking out, and Jaime yelled at me to slam the door, so I did. That's the last thing I remember. She saved my life." Oscar sighed deeply, trying to contain his emotions. "And there wasn't a damn thing I could do to help her..."

------

Jaime was realizing very quickly that she was in serious trouble. When she'd kicked out of the chair the adrenaline had dulled any pain and provided the needed momentum, but now, when she needed to run, she found her left leg supported her only with great pain. Then she saw the long, deep gash on the back of her leg. That was why they'd mentioned wires, and probably what had drawn their attention away from Oscar. They'd begun running back toward the hills, but Jaime realized now that they hadn't been retreating at all; they were luring her away from the limo. At least they hadn't gotten Oscar. But - was he already injured from the crash? How badly? And how in the _hell_ was she going to get out of here in one piece?

------

Back in his office, having returned from the crash site, Jack Hansen was on the telephone. He was calling Rudy's complex, asking that Steve Austin be paged for an urgent phone call. "Yes, I realize he's on an investigation. Tell him this is life-or-death urgent. Thank you." He briefly drummed his fingers on the desktop.

"This is Colonel Austin."

"Steve - Jack Hansen."

"Yes?"

"Look, it's totally against policy for me to be telling you this, but you and Jaime are both decent people, and I thought I should prepare you -"

"What is it?"

"We've got an ID on the group that's holding Jaime."

"Who's got her?"

"Fortress. I assume you're familiar -"

"Yeah - I know who they are."

"Listen," Hansen said in a very quiet but extremely urgent voice, "we've also got the location. The crews are on their way to the airfield; they'll load the planes and -"

"How much time do I have?"

"Steve, you can't go in there now. You'll never find her and make it out -"

"**_Dammit - how much time_**?"

"Probably half an hour, total. Listen...Steve," but Hansen was talking to dead air. Steve had dropped the phone and, at top bionic speed, was racing toward Jaime, trying to beat a squadron of bomb-bearing planes.

------


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

It took Steve just over ten minutes to reach the massive office/warehouse complex that currently hid Fortress from the world. Steve knew this group all too well; he'd sent several of its members, including one of the leaders, to prison in the past. They were vicious, not hesitating to kill anyone who caused them the smallest bit of trouble. They dealt in whatever government secrets they could squeeze out of their victims, selling them to the highest bidder. He guessed they wouldn't be holding Jaime in any of the offices, all of which had large plate-glass windows. But - which warehouse? _Where are you, Jaime?_ he wondered silently. His answer came in the form of gunfire from one of the buildings. At least that narrowed it down to one huge building, instead of three. He'd thought about calling his teams in to help, but if the planes came early or the men didn't watch the time closely...

The gunshots appeared to have come from a lower floor, so Steve decided to start in the basement and work his way up.

------

Meanwhile, Jaime was cornered. She'd found a stairway that led to the first floor, but the door at the top had a guard on the other side. Judging from what she'd seen so far, she assumed he, too, was armed. She couldn't go back the way she came, because she could hear the man who'd questioned her coming down the hall. She chose the first floor, and, bracing herself against the wall, she kicked the door with her good leg, trapping the guard between the door and the wall. She heard men coming up the stairs, yelling 'Stop her!'. The man caught by the door freed himself and began to fire his weapon just as Jaime turned a corner. She still couldn't find an exit, but was now in a huge storage room. Ducking behind a large stack of boxes, she paused for a moment to figure out her next move.

An arm snaked around her neck from behind, so violently that Jaime was nearly pulled off her feet. With one arm holding her in a literal choke-hold, the person behind her pressed what could only be a gun to the back of her head. "Don't move, or you're dead."

------

Steve looked at his watch. **_Five more minutes_**. He knew it was time to get out, but there was no way he was leaving without Jaime. He heard more gunfire, and it seemed to keep moving, always one floor above him. **_Four more minutes_**. She wasn't in the basement, or on the first floor, either, but she had been. Steve saw the kicked-open door and knew he was on the right track, but he was quickly running out of time.

**_Three minutes_**. More gunshots, then a scream - _Jaime's scream_ - and the slam of a heavy door, both outside the building. Steve figured they'd probably dragged her by force from one building to the next, possibly hurting her if she resisted. He headed outside and looked in every direction but saw no trace of her. **_Two more minutes_**. A car screeched to a stop beside him. It was Rudy and Oscar.

"Steve! Get in!"

"I'm not leaving without Jaime!"

"There's no more time!" Oscar insisted, his voice breaking. "I'm not losing both of you!" Oscar leaned out of the car, grabbed Steve's left arm and yanked with all the strength he had left. Steve was only half-way in the car when Rudy floored the accelerator, roaring off the property as the first planes appeared on the horizon.

They were a mile and a half away when the bombing began, and the concussive force still shook the car. Three grown men had tears in their eyes as multiple fireballs made the night sky as light as day.

------

Jaime's memorial service (there was nothing left to have an actual burial for) was held the following Sunday in front of the Tranquility Fountain she'd loved so much. There was a harp, a flute and an acoustic guitar, and Steve and Oscar had actually cooperated in choosing Jaime's favorite music to be played. Silent tears flowed down Oscar's face. They'd professed their love for each other for the first time on the morning she died, so they'd never had a chance to find out where they could've gone from there.

Steve, too, was crying streams of silent tears. He couldn't remember a time in his life when he hadn't loved her. He had never been able to let go of the hope that maybe, just maybe, one day they'd reunite - for good. Now, one day could never come.

------


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter Six

After the memorial service, Steve and Oscar had the same idea. Steve was just reaching out to touch Jaime's newly-engraved name on the "Lost in Action" wall for government operatives when he heard a voice behind him.

"I made sure it was done before the service," Oscar said softly.

Steve was grieving beyond words, even beyond tears now. "Thank you," he said. The lump in his throat threatened to choke him, and he had to walk away, leaving Oscar to his own turn at the wall. He walked slowly back to the fountain, feeling as though his own life had ended, as well. The light and the hope had certainly left him - for good.

"Oh, cut the waterworks, Austin; it's really not that bad."

_**Jaime?** He was hallucinating_. He had to be. Steve was too scientific to believe in ghosts, but he knew the mind was a very powerful thing, especially when it longed - ached - for something or someone so badly.

"Would you please quit being so stubborn?" Hands with a distinctly feminine touch touched both of his shoulders and gently turned him around.

"Oh...my...God - _Jaime_! How..." Steve was definitely too choked up with emotion to speak now.

Jaime smiled warmly at him. "Looks like rumors of my demise have been greatly exaggerated."

"It - really - is you, isn't it?"

"In the flesh. Oh, and the circuitry, of course."

Before he even thought about it, Steve picked Jaime up in his arms, sweeping her around in a broad circle of joy. Oscar, just coming away from the wall, turned toward the fountain in time to see the joy-filled embrace and the kiss that followed. Although it hurt him deeply, he couldn't help but notice how right they were together. "Jaime..." he said, approaching slowly to give them time to pull apart. "How -?"

"Question of the hour, isn't it?" she said, smiling happily. "I got away from them, right about when you got there, Steve. I heard you, but if I'd have answered, I would've probably been shot. They caught me again and put me in a van, and I was sure they were driving me off to kill me. But they knew the NSB was coming and they were high-tailing it outta there. When we got to the other building, I got real lucky. They didn't know my arm is bionic, and they put the IV needle in it. So I just pretended to be too doped to talk, and waited for the right moment."

"I heard you scream, right before the planes came." Steve said, still not quite daring to believe his eyes and ears.

"Yeah. Since at that point I thought I was gonna go out in the woods and be shot, I decided I had nothing to lose, and I screamed so you'd know I was there. Or, that I had been."

"I did know - I found the door." Steve told her.

"Steve, when they were driving me away, we could see the planes. And you were still in there. You could've been killed. Why didn't you evacuate?"

Oscar smiled at her. "He refused to leave without you; we had to drag him away," Oscar said, realizing even more strongly what he had to do. "Jaime, do you feel up to talking for a few minutes?" He looked at Steve, trying to convey what he couldn't tell him just yet - that it would all be ok, that he'd be bringing her back shortly.

He led her a short distance away, so preoccupied with what he was about to do that he inadvertantly led her to the wall with her freshly-engraved name on it. "I'll have them file that off tonight," he told her.

"What's up, Oscar?" Jaime asked, sensing the seriousness of his mood.

"Jaime, I know what we said to each other that morning in the hospital, and even though I meant every word...it was wrong. Really wrong. Being with me nearly got you killed."

"That wasn't your fault -"

"Please listen. When Callahan said I was married to my job, she was 100 percent right. And I can't give a relationship the attention it deserves and still do justice to my job." Oscar was looking directly into her eyes, and although his heart was breaking, that same heart knew to its core that he was doing the right thing. "I saw you with Steve a few minutes ago. It's true you two don't have what you used to; maybe you never will again. But you definitely have something, and it's very special. I don't want you to let that go."

"Oscar..."

"Come with me? Please?" He led Jaime back to where Steve waited, took her hand, placed it in Steve's, then smiled at both of them. "Happily ever after," he said softly, walking away.

END


End file.
